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Social discounting: The effects of manipulating construal level and distance to socially closer person
Author(s) -
Osiński Jerzy T.,
Karbowski Adam,
Rusek Jan,
Reinholz Anna
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of behavioral decision making
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.136
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1099-0771
pISSN - 0894-3257
DOI - 10.1002/bdm.2227
Subject(s) - construal level theory , discounting , delay discounting , psychology , preference , temporal discounting , social psychology , social distance , context (archaeology) , constant (computer programming) , social preferences , cognitive psychology , microeconomics , economics , computer science , medicine , paleontology , disease , finance , covid-19 , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , programming language , biology
Abstract In temporal discounting, when a smaller and sooner reward is selected over a larger and more delayed reward, the addition of a constant delay to both outcomes results in preference reversals. The present experimental study investigates preference reversals in social discounting, that is, allocating rewards based on social distance. The experiment was carried out on 140 participants asked to make hypothetical choices between a smaller reward for a socially closer person and a larger reward for a more distant person. The results showed that shifting both rewards by a constant and relatively large social distance caused a decrease of the discounting rate but only when concrete thinking about the recipients was not primed by the instructions. Shifting the rewards by a constant and relatively small distance caused steeper discounting, regardless of the type of instructions. Similarities and differences between temporal and social discounting are discussed in the context of these findings.